top of page

Privacy Policy
 

In this Privacy Notice the terms, ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ are references to Smith & Ericsson Limited (S&E), company number 12297484, having a registered address of 4th Floor, Dudley House, 169 Piccadilly, London, England, W1J 9EH. S&E is registered with the ICO as a data controller with registration number ZB197531

 

We are a property agency established in 2020 and we specialise in selling and renting up market properties in Greater London and surrounding areas. We value the privacy of people who browse our site or contact us looking to buy, sell, let or rent property. These business activities are referred to as “Our Services”. This Privacy Notice sets out the basis on which any Personal Data we collect from you through our website (https://www.smithandericsson.com) (Our Site), or that you provide to us through Our Site or via any other method by which you may communicate with us, will be processed by us.

 

Your privacy is important to us, and we are committed to keeping your information secure and managing it in accordance with our legal responsibilities under applicable data protection laws. If you are the owner or director of an incorporated entity that is our client then your personal data will be processed.

 

  1. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will process it.

  2. We reserve the right to change the contents of Our Site, including this Privacy Notice at any time, by posting such changes on Our Site.

  3. We do not transfer any personal data outside the UK or EEA or use automation to make decisions regarding the processing of your personal data.

 

WHAT INFORMATION IS BEING COLLECTED IF YOU ARE A PROSPECTIVE OR EXISTING CUSTOMER?

We may collect Personal Data from you in connection with your use of Our Site or Our Services, including such Personal Data as:

  • your name, email address, telephone number, property address and details of your requirements if you contact us regarding Our Services;

  • cookie data which relates to your use of Our Site;

  • data sent from your browser to our server which may include:

    • the time, date and duration of your visit to Our Site;

    • the site from which you have come (the referral URL);

    • the pages visited on Our Site; and

    • your IP address.

We may also collect information (which maybe Personal Data) from you in connection with the provision of Our Services such as:

  • your name, postal address, phone number, email address and details of your requirements where you engage us to provide estate agency services on your behalf either in branch, at your property, by telephone or by email;

  • where appropriate your marital status, date of birth, nationality and tax status when you enter into a residential sales or lettings agreement with us;

  • financial or other identifiers including your bank account details, tax URN number and income/expenditure details where we manage a financial transaction for you or take payment for the services which we provide to you;

  • your date of birth, nationality and other details from identity documents which you provide to us where we are required by law to carry out know your client anti-money laundering checks and right to rent checks and the results of those checks;

  • details of your existing or proposed mortgage arrangements, confirmation of how long you have owned the property and details of the source of monies invested in the property when you register to sell;

  • proof that you have sufficient funds to pay any deposit required when you wish to make an offer to buy a property;

  • evidence of the source of funds you will be using to buy a property, including for example, a copy of your bank statement or an agreement in principle from your mortgage provider;

  • details of any mortgage or insurance, any licensing documentation and service contracts which you have in place in relation to a property you wish to let, where you are a landlord and we are providing you with letting services;

  • your marital status, employment details, national insurance number, nationality, residential status, bank details and credit history when carrying out referencing and credit checks and the results of those checks;

  • details relating to your property including photographs, floor plans, energy performance certificate ratings/home reports, property description and survey results when you engage us to market a property for you;

  • photographs of your property, when marketing your property for sale or to let, preparing an inspection report on the condition of your property or when preparing an inventory to record the condition of your property at the start or end of a tenancy;

  • your contact details, move in and move out date, utility meter serial number and meter readings where you are a landlord or tenant, prior to a tenant moving in to a property and when the tenant moves out;

  • your move in and move out date and details of the deposit you have paid if you are a tenant when registering or releasing any deposit from a deposit protection scheme;

  • your client reference number and the balance of any debt which you owe when we are required to take steps to collect a debt or take possession of a property; and

  • references relating to you, or information required to prepare a reference for you where you are a tenant.

 

There may be circumstances where we need to collect and process Personal Data from you which is sensitive (Special Category Data). This relates to data regarding sexuality, religion, political   preference or medical data. The only Special Category Data we anticipate processing is if you have certain access requirements and to the extent that we process this data we do so that your disclosure to us of this data constitutes consent.  Where we do so, we treat this information with care and in accordance with additional security protection that is required under data protection laws.

 

USE OF THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Your information will be used by us in connection with the following purposes:

Providing You with Services:

  • To allow us to provide you with the estate agency services which you have asked us to provide, including but not limited to:

    • helping you to sell your property, or to find a property to purchase;

    • valuing your property;

    • letting services; and

    • progressing any mortgage and transaction you commence using these services.

  • to protect a tenant’s deposit by registering it with a deposit protection scheme;

  • to take payment from you for the services which we provide;

  • to arrange and carry out viewings;

  • to process the receipt and payment of rent, maintenance and tax for you if a property is being let;

  • to carry out tenant referencing and credit checks to assess if you are creditworthy before you move in to a property. To carry out such checks, we may share your Personal Data with credit referencing companies;

  • to better understand your requirements and provide you with services specific to your needs;

  • to improve Our Services by analysing your Personal Data so we better understand how you use our services;

  • to keep our client records up to date;

  • to bring to your attention ancillary services offered by third parties such as surveyors or finance brokers.

 

Marketing of Our Services to You:

  • to provide you with general updates in relation to the property market, in accordance with your preferences;

  • to provide you with information which we reasonably believe may be relevant to you based on the services we are providing to you including information on mortgages, protection, conveyancing and removals;

  • to carry out targeted advertising to you on social media websites such as Facebook where you have already shown an interest in our services. This is done through analysing information we collect about your interactions on Our Site and making this available to social media networks;

 

Responding to Your queries:

  • to help answer any questions which you have asked one of our agents or staff members;

  • to provide you with a quote for our services;

 

Improving Our Site:

  • to analyse cookie and website usage data to keep improving Our Site;

  • to allow us to customise the content which is presented to you based on your likely interests;

 

Legal and Regulatory Obligations:

  • to comply with applicable laws where we are obliged to retain and/or disclose certain information;

  • to investigate or address claims or complaints relating to your use of Our Services;

  • for internal and external auditing purposes;

  • to carry out anti-money laundering checks and to meet any obligation we may have to undertake ongoing monitoring of the business relationship we have with you;

  • to carry out right to rent checks;

  • to comply with any other legal or regulatory obligations which apply to us;

 

Other:

  • to transfer information to any entity which may acquire rights in us;

  • to collect a debt which is owed to us or a client;

  • for onward referencing where you are a tenant.

 

THE LEGAL BASIS UPON WHICH WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

Wherever we collect or use your Personal Data, we will make sure we do this for a valid legal reason. This will be for at least one of the following purposes:

  • because it is necessary to fulfil the terms of our contract with you – if you have entered into a contract with us for example to sell a property or to let a property;

  • because it is necessary to support the legitimate interests of our business as an estate agency to provide you with an efficient service that meets your needs – in all such cases, we will look after your information at all times in a way that is proportionate and respects your privacy rights and you have a right to object to processing as explained in the section on Your Rights below. Our marketing activities are conducted under this basis of processing;

  • to meet responsibilities we have to our regulators, tax officials, law enforcement, or otherwise meet our legal responsibilities

 

WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT?

The majority of the Personal Data which we collect will have been voluntarily provided by you, however we may also obtain your personal data from other sources including:

  • third parties including credit reference agencies, law enforcement/regulatory bodies and companies who provide identification and verification services for money laundering compliance,

  • companies providing commercially available databases, social networks (such as Facebook), introducer companies who have referred you to us for the delivery of services or other professional advisors;

  • online property portals such as Rightmove and Zoopla; and

  • other publicly available sources such as the electoral roll and HM Land Registry.

 

DATA RETENTION

We will only hold your Personal Data on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant purpose for which it was collected.

 

  1. For people who complete a transaction the personal data will be held for upto seven years;

  2. For enquiries we will retain this data for marketing but typically remove redundant contact details every two years. You always have the right to be included onto our database.

 

DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION

We may also disclose your information to the third parties listed below for the following purposes:

  • service providers who need to know the information in order to provide us or you with a product or service including our approved contractors for the purpose of carrying out maintenance or gas safety checks at your property, surveyors where you or your mortgage provider require a homebuyers or structural survey to be carried out, removal companies, your conveyancer, mortgage or insurance adviser;

  • law enforcement bodies and/or other regulatory entities in order to comply with any legal obligation or court order including the police, HMRC and local authorities;

  • auction houses where the property you are buying or selling is being sold by auction;

  • third parties we work with as part of providing our services and their associated companies and sub-contractors, including (but not limited to) IT administrators, inventory clerks, photographers, utility companies, marketing and transactional communication companies, energy performance certificate companies, companies that facilitate electronic signature of documents and relocation agents;

  • referencing companies to check your creditworthiness and to help prevent fraud and money laundering, the check will leave a soft ID footprint on your credit file which should not affect your credit rating;

  • debt collection companies to assist us in collecting any monies which you owe to us (or a client) where payment is overdue;

  • our professional advisers, for the purpose of assisting us to better manage, support or develop our business and comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;

  • third parties as necessary in the event of a claim or dispute relating to the use of our services;

  • if we are providing you with letting services, we may share your Personal Data with:

    • the landlord, or tenant or their guarantor to comply with our legal obligations including our obligation to keep the landlord fully informed where we manage a property on their behalf and to allow you to contact each other directly in circumstances where the landlord is managing the property;

    • a tenancy deposit scheme for the purpose of providing tenancy deposit protection;

    • The Property Ombudsman Scheme where they are providing an alternative dispute resolution service in connection with the letting services which we are providing.
       

We may outsource our property management services to a third party who is a separate data controller and responsible for and liable to you regarding its processing of your personal data. We have conducted due diligence but it is your responsibility to read the provider’s privacy policy.

​

We will inform the tenant and landlord of the details of the third party before the services are out sourced.  

​

We host Our Site using Wix.com Ltd and as part of their services regarding the use of cookies Wix may process your personal data. Our cookie policy is LINK.

 

MARKETING

We use the information you provide us with to keep you informed about products or services which we provide and which we believe you may be interested in. Where we conduct marketing we do so in accordance with applicable laws.

 

Where you contact us through the ‘contact’ page of Our Site, or make an enquiry in branch or on the phone, we will use the details you have supplied to us to provide you with our general property marketing unless you choose to ‘opt-out’ of these communications. If you do ‘opt-out’ then we will not send you information relating to our general property marketing.

 

If, at any time, you prefer not to receive further communications from us (except in connection with information, products or services that you specifically request), you will have the ability to unsubscribe from such communications by means of a link provided in every message that is sent to you by us or by contacting us (using the details provided below).

 

THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

Our Site may contain links to other websites. We accept no responsibility or liability for the content of other websites which are not under our strict control, in particular, we are not responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting other websites and such sites are not governed by our Privacy Notice.

 

SECURITY

We employ security measures which aim to protect the information provided by you from access by unauthorised persons and against unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction or damage.

​

We also expect you to take reasonable steps to safeguard your own privacy when transferring information to us, such as not sending confidential information over unprotected email, ensuring email attachments are password protected or encrypted and only using secure methods of postage when original documentation is sent to us.

 

COOKIES
Our Site uses cookies (including cookies to obtain an overall view of visitor habits and visitor volumes to Our Site). To view more information on what cookies we use and how we use them please review our separate Cookies Policy which can be found at *

 

YOUR RIGHTS

Subject to certain exemptions, and in some cases dependent upon the processing activity we are undertaking, you have certain rights in relation to your Personal Data. Click on the links below to learn more about each right you may have:

 

  • To access Personal Data

  • To rectify / erase Personal Data

  • To restrict the processing of your Personal Data

  • To transfer your Personal Data

  • To object to the processing of Personal Data

  • To object to how we use your Personal Data for direct marketing purposes

  • To obtain a copy of Personal Data safeguards used for transfers outside your jurisdiction

  • To lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority

 

If you wish to access any of the above-mentioned rights, we may ask you for additional information to confirm your identity and for security purposes, in particular before disclosing Personal Data to you. We reserve the right to charge a fee where permitted by law, for instance if your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

 

You can exercise your rights by contacting us using the details in the Contact section of this Privacy Notice. Subject to legal and other permissible considerations, we will make every reasonable effort to honour your request promptly or inform you if we require further information in order to fulfil your request.

​

We may not always be able to fully address your request, for example if it would impact the duty of confidentiality we owe to others, or if we are legally entitled to deal with the request in a different way.

​

Right to access Personal Data

You have a right to request that we provide you with a copy of your Personal Data that we hold and you have the right to be informed of; (a) the source of your Personal Data; (b) the purposes, legal basis and methods of processing; (c) the data controller’s identity; and (d) the entities or categories of entities to whom your Personal Data may be transferred.

 

Right to rectify or erase Personal Data

You have a right to request that we rectify inaccurate Personal Data. We may seek to verify the accuracy of the Personal Data before rectifying it.

​

You can also request that we erase your Personal Data in the following limited circumstances:

  • where it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected; or

  • where you have withdrawn your consent (where the data processing was based on consent); or

  • following a successful right to object (see right to object); or

  • where it has been processed unlawfully; or

  • to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject.
     

We are not required to comply with your request to erase Personal Data if the processing of your Personal Data is necessary:

  • for compliance with a legal obligation; or

  • for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
     

Right to restrict the processing of your Personal Data
 

You can ask us to restrict the processing of your Personal Data, but only where:

  • its accuracy is contested, to allow us to verify its accuracy; or

  • the processing is unlawful, but you do not want it erased; or

  • it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected, but you still need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or

  • you have exercised the right to object, and verification of overriding grounds is pending.


We can continue to use your Personal Data following a request for restriction, where:

  • we have your consent; or

  • to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or

  • to protect the rights of another natural or legal person.


Right to object to the processing of your Personal Data

You can object to any processing of your Personal Data which has our legitimate interests as its legal basis, if you believe your fundamental rights and freedoms outweigh our legitimate interests.

If you raise an objection, we have an opportunity to demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate interests which override your rights and freedoms.
 

Right to object to how we use your Personal Data for direct marketing purposes

You can request that we change the manner in which we contact you for marketing purposes.

You can request that we not transfer your Personal Data to unaffiliated third parties for the purposes of direct marketing or any other purposes.
 

Right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority

 

CONTACT

If you have questions or comments about our Privacy Notice or if you wish to exercise your rights mentioned above, please contact privacy@smithericsson.com

 

COMPLAINTS

If you have any concerns or complaints as to how we have handled your personal data you may lodge a complaint with the UK’s data protection regulator, the ICO, who can be contacted through their website at https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ or by writing to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

bottom of page